day by day in a marriage that's out of love

business trips

One thing he really likes about our lives and I really struggle with is the three day business trips. It keeps our relationship on a limited play with unavoidable intervals when he gets to ‘have some space’ and I get to wonder what that means. Of course, I get to have some space too, which can be a good thing but at the moment I’m all spaced out.

There’s something empowering in purposefully setting off on a journey, with people to meet and goals in mind, which bolsters up the ego, makes you new and relevant and exciting; I enjoy it, and I can understand why he does it.

Perhaps I’m feeling the difference between ‘he who goes’ and ‘she who stays’, or between being the rejecter and the rejected, but I find it less enabling to be purposefully left behind. That’s at odds with being a modern independent woman, so I should say that I’m quite capable of working late, seeing friends, going to the cinema, of functioning as an individual.

What I realising is that there is a cold, empty gulf between being one independent half of a couple and being essentially – forcibly – single, and I am not enjoying it.